Thursday, April 12, 2012

Trinity's House

“...Christ [Son] is faithful over God's
[Father] house as a son. And we are His house if indeed we hold fast our
confidence and our boasting in our hope. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today,
if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day
of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my
works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said,
“They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.” As I swore
in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”’” (Hebrews 3:6-11, E.S.V.). The
Holy Spirit warns and guides the Father’s household as they continually confess
faith in the Son.

“Take
care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading
you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long
as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness
of sin” (3:12,13). Church, faithful House of the Father, encourage and exhort
each other in the teaching and warning of the Holy Spirit (the Scripture) as
you unwaveringly confess and live your hope in the Son.

* * * * * * *

“...our Lord Jesus Christ...has knit together the society of
His new people by sacraments, very few in number, most easy of observance, and
most excellent in meaning; such is baptism consecrated by the name of the
Trinity; such is the communion of the body and blood of the Lord...”

Augustine, quoted in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (4.19.3).